14.06.09 - 5:58 p.m.

my high school english teacher, beloved and difficult, emailed me this afternoon, twice. once to ask how i am and once to say she'd been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor almost two years ago. why she decided to tell me this now, rather than in one of the previous emails she's sent me, is something of a mystery and makes me think she is not optomistic about her current round of chemotherapy.

after two paragraphs of details and timelines, she asked for my real address and doled out the kind of compliments given only by mothers or great admirers, of which i assumed i had no acceptably devoted specimens. i worry for the world at large should this woman's energy be dispersed into the atmosphere.
and should this baby be a girl, i think we may need to work jane into her name somewhere.